ANNOUNCER: The following program is sponsored by
generous friends and partners of Real Life.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: This is the physical world you
were born into. To enter into the
family of God, you've got to be born into the spiritual
realm. That's a second birth. Jesus said that to him.
What's born of this earth is earthly. What's
born down from heaven is of heaven.
ANNOUNCER: Today, Jack Hibbs talks about
life is hard and suffering is heavy. It can be extremely
difficult to live by faith, but learning to trust in our
sovereign God is exactly what we must do. Stay tuned
for the message. The Just Shall Live by Faith.
ANNOUNCER: One of the greatest gifts God
has given us is a gift that we can
give to others, but giving this gift is harder than it
sounds. It's the gift of forgiveness. I n a world filled
with hurt and resentment, choosing forgiveness isn't easy.
The weight of past grievances and the lure of bitterness weigh
us down and keep us from moving toward reconciliation. In "The
Gift of Forgiveness," Dr. Charles Stanley shows us how to
extend forgiveness, when grudges run deep and restoration seems
out of reach, life is filled with personal conflicts and
confrontations. Will you choose to forgive? "The Gift of
Forgiveness," will equip you to break free from the chains of
bitterness. Don't miss your chance to experience the
liberating power of forgiveness with this life transforming
book. Receive a copy when you make a gift of any size to the
ministry of Real Life at jackhibbs.com or by
calling (877)-777-2346. Order now.
JACK: Well listen, everything is based upon perspective.
How do we see things? Our perspective causes
us to form opinions, what we conclude,
but we think, and we conform actually a worldview
based on our perspective of things, and the Bible tells us,
listen to this, that the just shall live by faith. Man, that's
a game changer for all of us. The book of Romans is very
powerful for this eternal truth. So what I want to challenge you
to do is to pay close attention to the teachings that we're
going to go through right now, and I hope it's a great
encouragement to you for this reason that you and I are to be
living with our Bibles open. And that doesn't mean you have to
carry a Bible around, but the Bible says to hide God's Word in
your heart. So in a sense, have your Bible open, right? Have
your heart open to the Word of God as a guide. Have your Bible
open when you listen to the news. Have your Bible open when
you're reading the paper or the magazine or the social media
post, whatever it might be, have your Bible open. This puts you
in a position of discerning or judging what you should hear.
Now, listen, I'm not talking about judging people. I'm
talking about judging what you and I hear in light of the
Bible, so get your Bibles out and let's open them up as we
look at a message entitled, the Just Shall Live by Faith. And in
doing so, you're going to be given a perspective that you can
use right now for the rest of your life.
JACK: Right now, according to the Bible, it's Christians. This
book is written to Christians book of Romans. We suffer in
this world. What's amazing about Christian suffering is it makes
us more like Jesus. I don't know how that's going to work in
eternity, but it's really going to matter. It is a big deal.
What you and I suffer in this world for being a Christian is
going to really matter in the day of eternity. Now, you have
to take that carefully as a mature believer. You can't run
away from controversy, but at the same time, you shouldn't go
looking for it. The Bible says if you're persecuted for Jesus'
sake, you're going to receive a great reward in heaven. That
doesn't mean you run into a crowd of Jews or Muslims or
atheists and say, hey, you're all going to go to hell and they
beat you up. You should get beat up. That's not right. It means
that if you and I are going to live like Jesus, go figure. If
you and I are going to live like Jesus, people are going to hate
us. Jesus is the most hated individual on this planet today.
Why? Because He raised the dead. Why? Because He cleansed the
lepers. Why? Because He said if He dies on the cross, He'll die
for your sins. He's so hated. He's hated because He rose from
the dead. See, Jack, that's not making any sense. Exactly my
point. Your rejection of Jesus is a spiritual issue. It's not
intellectual. What did Jesus do to upset you? You and I can get
in line and tabulate all the people that hurt us. They didn't
die for us and listen, they're not getting us into heaven.
Jesus was the one who when
He was beaten and when He was
subject to grotesque suffering, the Bible says he opened his
mouth not once in defense. Why? Because if he would've, then he
would've not fulfilled His plan to redeem you. See, our sins
needed to be paid for, but God is holy. He can't just say,
well, we will just forget that He can't. God cannot do that.
Someone has to pay. God removed this from my vocabulary a long
time ago and it's this God, that's not fair. I never use
that word anymore, ever. No way. Because you know what? Strange
thing about forgiveness? The only way forgiveness works is if
the innocent person issues forgiveness. It gets worse. The
person that was sinned against is the person that has to pay
the price. That's not fair. Fair is you sinned against me. I
punch you out. That's fair. Fair is you do this the wrong thing,
no ice cream for you, right? That's fair. God's not fair. God
is extravagant. God says all of mankind is sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. That means this, all of mankind has
sinned and by default cannot go to heaven. But I have a plan. I
will send my son in the likeness of human flesh. He'll be born
just like you were born. He'll feel exactly what you feel
except he'll feel it perfectly. He will feel perfect pain. He
will feel absolute total rejection. None of us have been
rejected like Jesus has been rejected. When somebody drops a
brick on their foot in the world, nobody cusses in your
name. It's a spiritual issue, friends, so church, it's this,
life fully lived, that's when it's going to happen is when
this fallen age finally fails and it's going to come to its
end. It says, for we know that the whole creation groans in
labors verse 22 with birth pains together until now, it's
suffering physically, emotionally, in a non-physical
sense, even the spiritual realm. It's remarkable to me, and I
wrote it down. I just wrote it down so I wouldn't flub it up,
but I'll read it to you. It's just a thought that it's
remarkable to me. It's a remarkable word that's defined
here, the word groans in the Greek language is stenazó, and
it means to exhibit pain. Listen to this or to show evidence of
pain. Think about not only Jesus, not only you, but think
about this observable world right now, the physical,
emotional, nonphysical worlds, that's the spirit realm are out
of sorts, the word means that it's disjointed or misaligned or
skewed. Friends, listen, that may, if your bicycle tires are a
little out of whack, it's no big deal. But if you have a
centrifuge and something's out of whack, it's a big deal. Are
you hearing me? Can you imagine the engine? The engine on a jet
plane? Do you know that those planes, when you're cruising
along, eating your chips and sandwich on the flight, you just
sitting up there, the technology that's monitoring those motors,
if something goes off just ever so slightly, it's constantly,
constantly monitoring. Why? Because it could be
catastrophic. Why? Because something is stenazó. It's out
of joint or it's out of place and it causes something to go
into like a wobble and eventually fly apart at the
seams. Watch this, this is cool. We're almost done. The Bible
says the earth and the universe has suffered stenazó. It's out
of sync and it's imagine a V-8 only firing on 6 of the
cylinders that your car is shaking. Imagine. Listen, listen
up, physicists, astronomers, listen, the universe is so
finely tuned to the nth degree. You move Jupiter, we're dead.
Did you know that? We're 93 million miles from the sun, 5
miles closer, we fry. 5 miles back, we freeze to death. Isn't
that evolution spectacular? God did that and He said He sent
them in their orders and He keeps them in their order. Sin
enters the world and there's what we call chaos and it's
hurting. We call it death in a uniform fashion. Death
throughout cells, death throughout Atoms. Atoms are
dying. They're slowing down. Death in life. We'll get this.
The thing is, the book of Colossians tells us that the
only reason why it doesn't fly apart is because Jesus by the
Word of His power, is holding it together. That is awesome.
There's going to come a time when all that's dead and dined
and worn out and pooped out is going to come to its end and
it's a good day, for the believer it's a fantastic time.
Secondly, church is, this is when suffering comes to its end.
It says in verse 23 that not only that, but we also who have
the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, eagerly waiting. This is describing the daily life of
the believer. I'm going to give you some scripture references.
We don't have the time to cover them all, or you can download
all the notes online if you would, but you see that word
first fruits. Can you circle it? In most of your Bibles, the more
accurate translation, you look at the Old King James or maybe
the New King James. It will have first fruits as one word. The
English word, we flub it. It's first fruits. It causes a
problem. It simply means this. It comes out of the book of
Leviticus chapter 23. It's also in the book of Deuteronomy
chapter 26, but it's this you guys. God says here that not
only that, but we also who have the look, the first fruits of
the spirit. Follow me. Jesus Christ rose again from the dead,
right? It says, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ was
risen from the dead. Watch this Jesus being resurrected from the
dead. All those who believe in him shall be resurrected from
the dead also, he is the first fruit. Those who believe in Him,
trust Him are also partakers or we are also first fruit. See,
what's this first fruit stuff? When man did a work, when he
plowed his fields, Leviticus 23 says, or if you had your
vineyard or your cattle or whatever it might be, the first
born or the first harvested, the first bunch, the bushel was
presented by you or your family to the Lord, and the priest
would take it and he would wave it. It says it's a wave offering
before the Lord. So what's the deal about that? It's to remind
you that God provided this for you, that God is good and that
God deserves the best off the top, for this reason, it's great
because the Bible says, does God need it? He doesn't need it. So
then why does He take it? He doesn't take it. He'll never
take it. You have to offer it. I want to keep all the money I
make, keep it. Other people will read this and say, I get it. God
gets the first fruits of what he's allowed me to do. You know
what that does to you? It does something to you that money
can't buy. It causes you to be thankful. It causes you to be
appreciative. All the stuff you're trying to teach your
kids, dad, it needs some money. I don't have any. Just go to the
debit machine, the ATM. That's what kids think. What do you
mean you don't have any money? That little box always spits
money out. Go get it. No, that's not how it works. When we give
to God, it sets our heart right, sets our heart straight. It's a
good thing. But the point is, first fruits according to the
work of Jesus on the cross, the reward that Christ is given is
you. Jesus suffers all of that, goes through all of it. Dies is
resurrected, and the Bible says, for the joy that was set before
Him, He endured the cross putting up with the shame of it
all. Why? Because it says that He, the joy that He inherits is
the joy of our salvation. Jesus pays for it, and then He's the
one that's all excited that we're saved. See, wait. Don't
you have that right way? He paid for it, but shouldn't we be
excited? Yeah, you'd think right. If that were true, we
would never complain again or gripe again. If that were true,
we would break down the doors of the church to get in before
worship started. It's like, whoa, man, come on. Let's
together. Let's just break down the doors and get in there.
Heck, if the band's not playing we'll get up there and play it
ourselves. Let's give God glory. You can't stop- Listen,you can't
stop somebody like that. When they start to realize, wait a
minute, God's giving me breath right now, the O2 and all. Yep,
my heart's beating because of His goodness. Yep. Then give
your first heartbeat to God. Give your first breath to God.
It's not the money thing. God doesn't want our Mercedes. He
doesn't want our yacht. He doesn't want our whatever it is.
Are you hearing me? You get this right. He wants your heart. Any
love, relationship demands intimacy. Otherwise it's not a
good word. And then finally we end with this. It's here. It's
when we become finally, thank God, we become the redeemed. You
and me. Jesus said, you must be born again to enter the kingdom
of heaven. And remember, Nicodemus went into this
conniption. He couldn't figure it out. I'm an old man. My mom,
she's older than me. How do I get back inside my mom and come
out a second time? Jesus, what are you saying? And Jesus says,
aren't you the teacher of all Israel? You know what I'm
talking about? It's spiritual. If I were writing the Bible, I
would've said, it's spiritual. You knucklehead. What's wrong
with you? You got too- Nic, too much smarts. You're not thinking
this through. This is the physical world you were born
into. To enter into the family of God, you've got to be born
into the spiritual realm. That's a second birth. Jesus said that
to him. What's born of this earth is earthly. What's born
down from heaven is of heaven. And so in this, we find out,
when we read that God says in eternity, He knew that you would
say yes to Him when you heard the gospel. You've heard the
gospel three times today, by the way, I dunno if you're counting
three times you've heard it, that He loves you died on the
cross for you and rose again from the dead. Three times
you've heard this, God is good and He invented you with the
ability to choose because God's not Elon Musk who makes robots.
He made you in His likeness and you can choose whatever you
want. And if you want to go to heaven, God says, great, here's
the ticket. This is the way you go. And if you don't, then like
Spurgeon said, every human will have at least one prayer
answered. Isn't that a scary statement? I don't want God in
my life. Then you won't. Don't worry about it. You won't have
to. He won't make you. That would be rape. Put you in a
headlock and say, tell me you love me and tell me I'm Lord.
Tell me I'm the best God ever. He's not going to do that. Just
like you wouldn't do that. And the Bible tells us He adopted
us. I love that. When you're born into a family, you're born
into a family. What are you going to do? The kid comes out,
I guess he's ours. What are you going to do? You can't send them
back. Is there like an Amazon sticker we can put on this guy?
He's yours. God on the other hand picks. He adopts. That's
better. It's better for us. Say, well, Jack, I mean I love that,
but how do I know if God picked me? It's very simple. Do you
want Him? Do you want to know Him personally every day 24/7?
Literally for real. We're not talking about religion. You
happen to be in a church right now that has these walls that's
just to pull this thing off. Keep us from getting sunburned
or rained on seriously beyond. This is not the church. You are
the church. And here's the thing, we could pack up and go
on a side of a hill and have church just like this because
you are the church, but it's a choice that you make, but it's
an opportunity that God gives you. Religion says, kick these
10 steps and sign this thing and do the other and you'll be
accepted. God's not into that. That's what man does. God says,
you want to love me. Here's the deal. I died for you. You're in
it. Think about this. You are in a fireball planet heading toward
into oblivion, and God is saying, you can jump. Now, I've
given you a parachute jump and notice little kids in heart,
they jump just like that. You put a little kid up on a wall,
watch 'em jump and they'll say, do it again. Aren't they
amazing? You put me on a wall and you're going to catch me.
I'm not jumping. Think about that little kids very believing
at heart, very precious. And Jesus says, your heart must
become like the heart of a child to enter the kingdom of heaven.
What does that mean? Be believing. You're a person and
you appreciate a real relationship. Why would you have
God be less when He made you? You didn't make Him, and He
wants to know you personally and He adopted. So you say, how do I
know if you want Him? It's because He knew an eternity that
when you would hear the gospel, you would say Yes. If you're
sitting here today, if you're watching right now and you're
saying, I don't care a word about what you're saying, that's
because He didn't pick you, but what's that based off of? For
knowledge, He knew in eternity before time ever began that when
you were presented with the option, you would say no. So He
didn't pick you. Why would you go to a horse race and pick a
horse that's going to lose? Why would you go to the Indianapolis
500 or the Long Beach Grand Prix and pick a loser? Right? Think
about that. You pick who's going to win. Well, the Christian is
not the winner. We benefit, but the truth of the matter is this.
God knew in eternity that you would say yes to His offer or no
to His offer and to say no, you continue on that fireball crash
into eternity. That's called hell. And the Bible says
everyone's there who is there has no one to blame but
themselves. But everybody who's in heaven gives God thanks for
getting them there. Isn't that beautiful?
JACK: Well, friends, listen, I know that
almost sounds offensive, right to the
legalists, the just shall live by faith. And yet as
you just heard, that is the biblical mandate given to us by
God that the just shall live by faith. That was the Word to
Abraham. That was the Word to Paul, and that's the Word to you
and I, and so regarding our conclusion to this, where are
you in this? When the Bible says the just shall live by faith,
notice this. It's the faith that you have in the Lord Jesus
Christ alone that causes you to be just, see, it's not what you
do. None of us are going to enter heaven and say, wow, did I
make the right decision? No. Those of us who go to heaven,
it's going to be because of one reason. We've completely thrown
ourselves upon the merits of Jesus Christ alone, tragically
for those who wind up in hell, it's because they rejected the
offer that God gave them. It's their choice to wind up there,
and yet God weeps for the death of the wicked. He says He wants
all to be in heaven, but tragically all are not going.
That's not God's decision. The gospels preach to the world, but
not all the world responds. But I'm not talking to all the world
right now. I'm talking to you right now. If you agree with
this prayer, then you tell God, amen and yes to this. Would you
pray right now? Lord Jesus Christ, I ask you to forgive me
of my sins. I ask you to cleanse me of my dependence upon
religion, upon a pastor, a priest, or a pope. I'm asking
you to cause me God, to receive my little faith as small as it
is to trust Jesus for my eternal life, to forgive you of my sins,
and I receive the salvation of Christ and I now decide to be a
follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I believe He died on
the cross and rose again from the dead. And you would say in
Jesus' name, amen. Friend. If you've prayed that prayer, we
want to know that so we can help you in your walk with Jesus. You
can go to jackhibbs.com for all the information you need,
but we are here to help you in your walk
with God. We'll see you next time.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: One of the greatest gifts
God has given us is a gift that we can
give to others, but giving this gift is harder than it
sounds. It's the gift of forgiveness. I n a world filled
with hurt and resentment, choosing forgiveness isn't easy.
The weight of past grievances and the lure of bitterness weigh
us down and keep us from moving toward reconciliation. In "The
Gift of Forgiveness," Dr. Charles Stanley shows us how to
extend forgiveness, when grudges run deep and restoration seems
out of reach, life is filled with personal conflicts and
confrontations. Will you choose to forgive? "The Gift of
Forgiveness," will equip you to break free from the chains of
bitterness. Don't miss your chance to experience the
liberating power of forgiveness with this life transforming
book. Receive a copy when you make a gift of any size to the
ministry of Real Life at jackhibbs.com or by
calling (877)-777-2346. Order now.
ANNOUNCER: Life is full of
fear, doubt and worry. The more you listen
to and see the world today, the easier it is to feel
hopeless and helpless. Amidst the confusion of Voice of Hope
has emerged. The Real Life Network founded by Jack Hibbs,
the Real Life Network is a free digital media platform, void of
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Click on the QR code or sign up for
free at reallifenetwork.com. Fast forward your faith.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life Radio with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: God's Word never will return void.
God's Word is spirit. It's power and it
has its effect. God did not give us a Bible prophecy
to scare us, but to prepare us. You are the light of the world,
Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. How does that happen?
ANNOUNCER: Jack Hibbs truly believes we
are living in some of the most exciting
days in history, which brings some great opportunities
to share with the world a powerful no-nonsense
presentation to the gospel, to this generation who are
searching for answers and truth. Will you stand with us in
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ANNOUNCER: The preceding program was
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